Girls!: Helping Your Little Girl Become an Extraordinary Woman

By William Beausay and Kathryn Beausay

Welcome to the wonderful world of GIRLS! With humor, energy, and down-to-earth wisdom, Bill and Kathryn Beausay invite readers on a "parent's adventure of a lifetime" as they show how to bring out a daughter's natural capabilities. Now available in paperback, this one-of-a-kind book helps parents encourage their daughter to stretch to the maximum of her abilities and confidently reach for her dreams.

From the age of four to the onset of puberty, parents have the opportunity to instill winning qualities in their daughters. Readers will learn how to teach their girls to:
•influence people through personal and public leadership
•learn disciplined habits and positive attitudes
•master skills that build confidence and self-worth
•build a strong spiritual foundation that will last a lifetime

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781441237347

William Beausay

William Beausay is a clinical psychotherapist and author of the best-selling Boys!: Shaping Ordinary Boys into Extraordinary Men

Book preview

Hafemann

1

parental discretion advised

Girls! Girls! Girls!

There they were, perched like three chirpy little chickadees on our couch. They were colorful, bright, bubbly, and totally alive—my (Bill’s) first little band of examinees ready to share with me the magic and mystery of girlhood! Oh sure, they were only seven years old and more adorable than cooperative, but so what? Inside these little women was the answer to a puzzling question I longed to answer: What’s it like to be a girl? I just needed the right key to unlock the right vaults.

They initiated the talk. If you want to know about girls, well, we love to laugh and fight, said the most excitable of the three. Being the fathead that I am, I scrambled to take notes on every word instead of interpreting the clear message that this would be a tough interview.

I replied very seriously, I need you to tell me what it’s like being a girl.

You’ll have to guess what, chicken butt!! Hee hee hee, hoo hoo, hee hee.

I put my pen down. Ahem. Let’s try this again. . . . What do you most like about girlhood?

Nice try, chicken thigh!! Haaaa! haaaa! Hee hee hee, hoo hoo hoo, hee hoo haa.

Strike two. This interview was beginning to feel like a car careening sideways on ice. But, hey, I’m a hip father of the ’90s; I can go with the flow! Let’s just be cool and try this one more time, I thought. Maybe it’s the timing of the questions.

So, what kinds of things do girls like to do? I carefully plied.

We do flips, chicken lips!! Ba, haaaaaaaaaaaa!! Hee hee hoooo ha ha ha.

Oh, man! My little darlings were reduced to a howling bevy of hyenas, rolling around on the couch in teary-eyed, gut-busting laughter, poking, slapping, and screeching—all at my expense. My understanding, my research, my knowledge all at stake. I was beat. Oh well, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em! Yabba dabba doo! Hoo hoo!

In the Beginning Was Dr. Spock

Dr. Benjamin Spock jumpstarted this whole childrearing business with an innocuous little book called The Commonsense Book of Baby and Child Care published in 1946. He successfully challenged parents from the perspective of a pediatrician genuinely concerned about how kids were being raised. As he first blazed the cliff-side trail on which we now creep, he inadvertently kicked the first stone in what’s become a landslide of childrearing advice.

The avalanche has been crushing. Not to be outdone by the advice of a medical doctor, countless psychologists chipped in, then the psychoanalysts offered their cold stones, followed by the humanists of the ’60s, the feminists of the ’70s, the conservatives of the ’80s, an assortment from the ’90s, and wouldn’t you know it, Dr. Spock again! What’s ahead? Well, there’s bad news and there’s good news.

You’re Just an Old Bag

There’s a saying, You don’t know what’s in a teabag until you put it in hot water. We’re all in this childrearing teacup together. Due to the combined influences of the media, living close together, and public education, to name a few, we’ve been quietly submerged in a hot broth of ideas impacting us beyond our perception. It’s only by looking at the long-term effects on our children that we can judge what kind of tea we’ve been.

The bad news is that our kids are having some problems. Though your daughter may not be struggling herself, she is a member of a society of imperiled children. Never in the history of this country have so many children been given so many material things, yet they have failed to develop inner character. Our children are floundering because of problems related to family life, parental involvement, cultural values, and conflicting commitments.

Here’s the good news: The problems facing kids today are fixable. At the time of this writing, we as a society are undergoing a new shift in adult attitudes toward families. Women are clearly experiencing an urge to be home. They’ve witnessed that what’s been sacrificed by choosing the career track is irreplaceable. Fathers too are finding to their surprise that family life is quite agreeable and in fact desirable. These are wonderful trends for which we should be thankful.

The specific forces affecting mothers are different from those affecting fathers. The best way to address them is for us to have private chats with both Mom and Dad. Ladies first.

Mother . . . Please Relax and Listen

We see these five specific forces impacting mothers today:

A lack of confidence created by the unclear role of mothers

Being overly cautious in raising girls

The idea that, to succeed, girls must be better than boys

The belief that complex answers are better than common sense

An inability to be fresh and flexible

Today women are confused about their roles as women and mothers. The confusion arises from the myriad of conflicting options ranging from career opportunities to stay-at-home motherhood. In addition to conflicting options are conflicting expectations: being a wonderful mother, assertive career woman, Cindy Crawford look-alike, PTA president, and soccer coach. This super-woman expectation has eroded our natural confidence in being great mothers.

Whether you are a dedicated career woman or a stay-homie, your role is secondary to the attitudes you communicate about your role. Each generation of mothers has different role choices to make, and girls have always survived the shifts and changes. So will yours. Be confident and optimistic despite whatever hidden role-pressure you may feel.

Closely linked to an eroded confidence base is excessive caution in raising girls. We cannot possibly know all the walls our girl will smack into on her trip through life, and that terrorizes us. Here’s an alternate and more realistic view: Girls were made for this rough-and-tumble world and outfitted for trouble. We must raise them with an expectation and a self-confidence that they will prevail. We must expose them to challenge and difficulty—and yes, even to fear.

Girls need life-threatening, fearful things in their lives for good mental health. What?! Such a proposal sounds ghastly by today’s standards! Unfortunately, girls will never learn to handle the good and bad in life unless we let them touch it.

If there is one droning, redundant theme we constantly hear and read it is the notion that in order to be successful, girls need to be better than boys. Please expunge this idea from your head! Boys are a universe of their own and have nothing to do with raising girls and much less with being a standard of comparison. Girls are fabulous on their own terms, and we need to begin thinking about them in relation to themselves.

Our culture seems to believe complex answers are better or more correct than simple ones. Avoid this trap. The more complicated parenting solutions become, the more error-prone they are. Bloated, scientific-sounding schemes for raising kids are simply foolish. Let’s keep our thinking simple.

We are bombarded with cultural influences telling us what to do and what to think. Nobody needs his or her own ideas. We’ve become intoxicated with predigested ideas and answers for everything. These ideas and answers are slowly poisoning our God-breathed ability to think and act for ourselves with originality and flexibility. Counteract these forces with the following ideas:

Cultivate passionate wishes for your daughter

Avoid the extremes

Model inner beauty and grace

Learn to be a gentle friend and compassionate listener

Celebrate and participate in your daughter’s girlhood

Passionate Wishes

Your daughter is a wonderful, beautiful, and talented expression of God’s grace in your life. Be thankful for her daily and enjoy the natural pride swelling automatically within you! We have no doubt that she’s brought you immense happiness and satisfaction way beyond our pitiful efforts to describe. We want you to bubble with excitement when you stop to ponder how blessed you are.

There is no shortage of books encouraging you to let your girl find her own way in life. But this seems so unnatural! We’ve never met a mother who simply lets her girl bop along. No! We all want our girls to stand out, to establish themselves in some extra-special way, as extra-special as we feel they are. We pray and wish for them to be confident, strong, full of self-respect and conviction. And we’re willing to do anything necessary to get them there.

Don’t surrender your deepest wishes for your girl, no matter who suggests otherwise. Having challenging aspirations for our daughters is fantastic! Believing in extraordinary girls is something we wish to encourage.

Every girl needs at least one crazy person in her life who believes that her wishes can come true, no matter how insane those wishes might seem. Be the nutty person who tells her she can do anything. Shout it loudly and often. Say it proudly! Don’t get economical on your enthusiasm.

Think about this story. We met a girl at a traveling fair passing through our town. She was eight years old, and we found her playing with a diesel engine that ran a clattering little merry-go-round operated by her parents. She was pathetic. The contrast between her and the girls in our group was stark—they were bright and cheery and she, gray and vacant . . . and gulping diesel fumes by the cubic yard.

What struck us was how easy she was to ignore. It was as if her lack of personality made her somehow invisible. Had she not been sitting next to an exhaust pipe, we might not have even noticed her. We quickly became preoccupied with saving her life! We hailed her over and stumbled through a difficult conversation, gathering some sad details. She was an only child, lived in a panel truck, was home schooled, and was clearly uncomfortable with speaking to us.

As we talked to the girl, it began to rain. We suggested she run for cover, but her mother (she was a worst-case-scenario mother—words fail to capture her) yelled from behind us, Aww, she’s just a filthy little weed! She needs a little waterin’! Then, glaring at her girl, she spit, Get back over there where you were at!

It’s sad to think that this lonely little traveler is going to assault life like all the rest of our daughters without even the vaguest hope of much achievement. We all share the tug of despair knowing that she will probably not achieve excellence. She is a deep well of possibility, fouled by her parents’ lack of vision.

We all have our own feelings toward mothers like this, but are you really any different? Now don’t gasp! Think it through. Is thinking big, crazy things for your girl an active, daily priority? Have you decided to act in continually positive ways toward your girl? Are you thoughtful and diligent? We must choose to think this way, and most of us haven’t learned to consciously choose these thoughts.

Many of us come from backgrounds where life just happened to us. We’re unfamiliar with making a decision, setting a goal, and going after it relentlessly. Any mother can decide to wish passionately for her girl, but so few do. You need to become part of a select group of mothers making daily decisions to help their daughters reach high.

Avoid the Extremes

Think about this: Seven of ten pregnancies are accidents. Two of ten children are conceived despite the use of contraception. One of ten are planned and wanted. You may have had good reasons for having your daughter, or (like the other seven of us) may have had no reason at all! Your reasons for having your daughter can determine your childrearing attitudes.

There are two extremes here. One extreme is raising a daughter exclusively for our sake: Girls in this scenario are little more than helpers and assistants. The other extreme is raising a daughter exclusively for her sake, turning her into a full-blown prima donna. Nothing is required of this girl. Both extremes are precarious in their own way.

The Girls! Team has spoken. The best spot to raise winning girls is not on either extreme, but somewhere on the prima donna side of center. If you occupy one of the fringes, please consider the long-term results. Your girl is simply in your care here. Raise her for her own sake while giving her a balanced life.

Inner Beauty and Grace

Mothers spill into their daughters all their special feminine ways. Daughters soak it up with a natural absorbency, mimicking gestures, posture, voice, and mannerisms. As girls get older, they’re aware of how mothers dress and do their hair. You’ve no doubt accidentally caught your girl in the midst of her own form of role-playing. She’s probably wanted to help you with your hair, let you know what she thinks you should wear, and she’s ended up dressing a lot like you.

Daughters model inward beauty just as fastidiously. A girl mimics her mother’s attitudes, contentedness with herself, optimism, strength, wisdom, patience, gentleness, and sense of humor. Developing these positive qualities is your role. Take a mental measurement of yourself. What you transmit affects what she sees in herself. Remember, a big pair of eyes is watching you.

You are her standard of beauty and grace. Do what you can to set a high mark. Tell her specifically what her endearing qualities are, what’s especially important to you, and what you love and admire the most. Make a special effort to mention the physical qualities that make her unique.

A Gentle Friend and Compassionate Listener

You can easily be your daughter’s most treasured and trusted confidante. One of our Girls! Team members remarked that she was most excited to have a girl because she needed a partner in crime. By virtue of your position as Mom comes the natural opportunity to share your daughter’s doubts, concerns, accomplishments, and ideas. You’ve traveled down her road before and you can best show your love by stopping, stooping, and listening. Let her open up and run on. Just follow where she goes. At the end of the listening trip sits a pot of gold—a treasure called closeness.

Celebrate Her Girlhood

George MacDonald said, There are some things worth being a child to get ahold of again. This world of girls is such an inspiring, thrilling place! Join your daughter and live in her world. Don’t sit off in the background like some plant; grab a Barbie and dive in! There’s nothing like a little fun to liven up a dull adulthood!

Daddy, Are You Still with Us?

There’s a big secret we men must concede: Our lives are spent in self-absorption. We invest most of our time thinking about ourselves and the job we’re doing, how we compare to Jack the banana salesman next door, and what’s in life for us.

Crashing this tightly guarded ego party come women—and daughters! And the game of life suddenly snaps to a different beat. This scene replays itself daily and constitutes for us guys one of life’s great challenges: Trying to understand girls!

We’re great at guessing about girls and proclaiming that we understand them. But let’s face it, it’s rare when we get more than a tiny pinch of understanding. But do you think we’d ever admit it? No way! We’ll just continue privately praying for a miracle that girls might somehow make sense to us.

That reminds me (Bill) of a story. I was once counseling a rather dispirited man who was in the midst of a nasty divorce. He had two daughters (ages five and seven) living with his ex-wife, and he wasn’t allowed visitation very often. He wanted to appear to his wife to know all about girls, so he read Seventeen and Teen magazines to find out what girls liked to do. After all this high-powered research, he just couldn’t understand why his girls wanted to play dolls (he hadn’t read about that in any of his sources) or why it upset his wife when he let his daughters listen to wild rock music and go makeup shopping at the local department stores. And the tattoos—whoa! They really set her off!

Most fathers, like him, have trouble understanding girls. But do we guys ever ask for directions? Do we ask for help? No! We’re more defensive than the Dallas Cowboys and under no circumstances would we ask for guidance. This attitude leads to mistakes, misunderstandings, and meandering.

Understanding your wife and daughter is not as crucial as wanting and trying to understand them. That’s all you need, especially with your daughter. Begin that process by reviewing this list of status quo thoughts of the fathers of the ’90s:

Just buck up, baby

Passion has no place in parenting

I needn’t act in any special way; girls are no big deal

Just set high standards and make her work to reach them

You raise the girls; I’ll raise the boys

Just Buck Up, Baby

Many fathers have a buck-up approach to raising kids. Their perspective goes something like this: I was given a kick in the teeth when I was young, and if I came out all right, so will they! So no more goofball parenting ideas!

This is a double-edged philosophy. On the good edge, we must ignore kooky parenting ideas. Any man with a wife who reads too many parenting books knows what we mean! On the bad edge, too many dads are excusing themselves from raising their girls. Be honest with yourself. Be sure you’re not wounding your daughter because you’re too lazy to read and learn!

Passionate Parenting

Most girls don’t know any live men. The men they know are pressured and preoccupied, with no time for real living, no time for real zeal for life, let alone time for them. Just well dressed, manicured, and cologned corpses, as far as they can tell. Don’t let passionate fatherhood escape you. Act quickly while you can.

Get fired up! The next few chapters might inspire some adventures you can have with your girl. You only have one go-around in girlhood, so make it count! The time is now.

No Big Deal

Many fathers believe they needn’t do anything really special to raise a great girl. We maintain that if you want average girls, do average things. If you want exceptional girls, do exceptional things. What those exceptional things are will unfold in the pages of this book. Make your choice.

High Standards

There is everything good about setting high standards for your girl to live up to. What’s wrong is thinking that all you must do is set high standards, then step away. That approach has a 1 percent success rate. Fathers must coach their daughters and show them how to climb. Pointing and saying in effect, Go fetch doesn’t cut it—not if you want your girl to succeed. You are her guide. You can richly enhance her chances of success.

Dad’s Role

Does the You raise the girls, I’ll raise the boys proposal sound familiar? Your role in your daughter’s life is enormous, and largely unseen. The Girls! Team members are unanimous in believing that fathers can teach daughters such things as the work ethic, self-confidence, and assertiveness. You provide a model of how men should relate to women. Your modeling becomes her guide for male relationships.

Interestingly, the Girls! Team also told us that as little girls they all wanted to spend more time with their dads. There was near unanimous agreement that most of the special memories of girlhood revolved around